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A 60 Minute Segment on CECOT Was Killed. Here’s What it Was and How to Watch It

Reading Time: 8 minutes.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem receives a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center CECOT with the Minister of Justice and Public Security Gustavo Villatoro in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 26, 2025. (DHS photo by Tia Dufour)

CECOT, taken by Tia Dufour for the DHS, via Wikimedia Commons

CECOT is an “anti-terrorism” prison in El Salvador. Such prisons never have a good reputation. We all remember the atrocities carried out at Guantanamo Bay. CECOT has been in use for years, and received recognition during Joe Biden’s presidency for its cruel tactics. The UN has reported conditions well below their standard for prisoners. There are reports of torture, confined spaces, unsafe drinking water, and sexual abuse. Humanity, throughout its lifetime, has created densely packed areas of human suffering many times before. Ships carrying would-be slaves to the “New World,” concentration camps under Nazi control, and CECOT certainly makes that list.

The very thing that anyone with a heart would condemn the prison for is exactly why it was perfect for the Trump administration.

With Trump and his goons, cruelty is the point. ICE rounded up people based on their race or perceived race, or by having their immigration cases thrown out so they could be kidnapped while trying to immigrate legally. 60 Minutes spoke to Luis Muñoz Pinto, a college student who was seeking asylum in the United States. He’s a young man with no criminal record who was pursuing the legal process for entry in the United States.

ICE kidnapped him and shipped him off to America’s favorite concentration camp on foreign soil. Fortunately, a deal for a prisoner swap with Venezuela bought Pinto his freedom. 60 Minutes was able to speak with him and independently verify his claims. The picture he paints of CECOT aligns with videos, photos, maps, and leaked information previously obtained from other sources. 60 Minutes verified his claims of torture and inhumane conditions, all on America’s order.

So, naturally, CBS killed 60 Minutes’ story right before it aired, with some calling it politically motivated.

The act certainly seems to be one of censorship, and while it might be the most blatant censorship of the Trump administration, it won’t be the last. It echoes the censorship in other authoritarian regimes, how German citizens didn’t realize they stood by while their neighbors were dragged off to death camps. At least Americans will not be able to claim ignorance. Because, while Trump’s silent influence was enough to block the 60 Minutes interview from airing in America, it wasn’t enough to keep it from Canada, and the wider internet as a result.

You can, and absolutely should, check out 60 Minutes’ look into CECOT, even if you have to be a little creative to do so. We have to do something about the fascist state we live in where the state can send people to concentration camps and censor the news about it. It starts by understanding what’s happening.

Inside CECOT: America’s Preferred Concentration Camp

“When we got there, the CECOT director was talking to us. The first thing he told us was that we would never see the light of day or night again.”

– Luis Muñoz Pinto, a college student from Venezuela who was seeking asylum in the U.S. speaking to 60 Minutes

Luis Muñoz Pinto “never even had a traffic ticket.” A college student looking to escape Venezuela for the United States. He went through the legal route, tried to seek asylum, but, like many Hispanic men with tattoos, he was profiled, arrested by ICE, and sent to one of America’s concentration camps, CECOT. CECOT was primarily used for gang members and suspected terrorists in El Salvador. For the United States, it has become a place to send people and forget about them. The director upon entry told them they’d “never see the light of day or night again.” Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Humanity keeps trying—and succeeding—to create hell on earth.

60 Minutes spoke with Pinto, who described the situation behind bars at CECOT. He described being beaten, sexually assaulted, deprived of sleep, water, nutrition, healthcare, and even sent to pitch black confinement in solitary for not being able to hold a stress position. 60 Minutes verified his claims by finding other videos and accounts, including an interview with the director himself, that confirm the treatment he reports.

This is what America’s doing to anyone they deem undesirable. With ICE fighting for—and winning—the right to racially profile their victims, and many people sent to these concentration camps having commit no crimes, and even fewer having committed potentially violent crimes, America’s goal seems clear.

60 Minutes Discusses Conditions in CECOT

“Four guards grabbed me, and they beat me until I bled, until the point of agony. They knocked our faces against the wall. That was when they broke one of my teeth”

Luis Muñoz Pinto

Even before this report, the United Nations and President Joe Biden called out the cruel treatment at CECOT. The UN states CECOT violates their standards for the minimum treatment of prisoners. According to reports, prisoners in CECOT are tortured. They are reportedly chained up, forcibly have their heads shaved, forced in stress positions, guided around crouched, thrown in solitary for minor infractions where they face constant beatings and harassment from guards, sexually harassed, with Pinto describing them grabbing and tugging at his genitals, deprived of sleep with 24/7 lighting, except in pitch-black solitary, forced to sleep on metal shelving, densely packed in groups, deprived of clean water and healthcare. In the 60 Minutes segment, Pinto claims their only water was toilet water, and was reportedly disgusting, making many people sick. The only healthcare they offered was telling prisoners to drink the water. Prisoners believed they’d die there. They believed they were already dead.

CECOT violates the UN’s guidelines for prisoners, as well as the United States’ own constitutional rights for prisoners who are not to receive cruel or unjust punishment. Perhaps that’s why we ship these prisoners off American soil. Pinto claims prisoners had no hope. They were the living dead in hell. Abandoned and forgotten, tortured and abused.

Naturally, Trump and his ilk of deplorables love it. The cruel conditions at the notorious CECOT prison sold it for Trump. Cruelty and a culture of fear are at the basis for authoritarianism.

Innocents Tortured

The 60 Minutes segment points out that over half the people sent from the United States to CECOT, by ICE’s own admission, have no criminal history. ICE also admits that only 3% of the people they sent to this hellish prison were ever convicted of a violent offense or a potentially violent offense. 97% of people we sent into the depths of hell were non-violent criminals or innocent.

The Trump administration knows the people they’re sending here are innocent. Perhaps that’s why when notorious dog murderer Kristi Noem visited the prison, she didn’t pose for photos in front of the prisoners from the United States, but, according to 60 Minutes’ reporting, in front of a packed cell containing Salvadoran gang members. She couldn’t even face the people we put in hell.

Story Blocked at Last Minute

The 60 Minutes story on CECOT was finished. Employees at CBS say they had fact checked it, ran it by their attorneys, and held multiple screenings for it. CBS News boss Bari Weiss even reportedly viewed it prior to release. Host Sharyn Alfonsi says she had wrapped up and already headed home to Texas. That’s when she found out that Weiss spiked the story. Instead of airing as planned, the segment would be postponed indefinitely. The reasons, 60 Minutes employees say, are politically motivated, and may have come down from the top to appease Trump.

Bari Weiss claimed the 60 Minutes story didn’t “advance the ball” on the CECOT story. We already know the conditions are bad. Many of us who have been following the news have known these prison camps were cruel beyond measure. However, having now viewed the segment for myself, I can say that, in my opinion, it does advance the ball. It’s an extended interview with someone who went through that hell and survived to tell his story. It adds the human touch of seeing the face of a man our government decided to torture for the “crime” of seeking asylum in the United States legally. It showed his story alongside the information that nearly all the prisoners we’ve sent there were non-violent. The story humanizes this tragedy. That advances it beyond reports and numbers, leaked photos and schematics. 60 Minutes’ reporting makes the violence real, and that’s vital.

This story humanizes the victims of the Trump administration. It could energize a population against this cruelty. That’s how it forwards the narrative. It’s likely why the story had to be censored too. Now we end up taking as much time fighting the censorship as we do the cruel treatment of Trump’s victims.

Why Spike the Story?

“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. … It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

– Sharyn Alfonsi, who reported on the CECOT story

Weiss’ complaints range from the report not focusing enough on the half of people sent there for crimes, seemingly ignoring that even those crimes were nearly entirely non-violent, and, primarily, that the government didn’t get to make a statement or do an interview to counter or react to the reporting.

60 Minutes reached out to the Trump administration. They refused to respond or give a statement, let alone provide someone willing to be interviewed, as Bari Weiss reportedly requested. If the Trump administration can spike a story simply by refusing to respond to request for comment, we’ll never be able to report on anything. Trump himself has sternly told a reporter, “quiet piggy” for asking him questions he didn’t want to address about his relationship with Epstein and potential involvement in his child sex trafficking ring. If ignoring an issue is enough to censor a story, the Trump administration will be able to block any negative news.

Ulterior Motives?

Bari Weiss’s appointment to head CBS News as its editor-in-chief raised eyebrows. She has never been an investigative journalist, having started as an opinion writer, fed incorrect information to the public—according to her own coworkers—and started her own news network that seemingly slanted to the right and into conspiracy, rather than news. She’s been an outspoken transphobe and Zionist. Her appointment also was unconventional in that she didn’t have anyone above her, reporting directly to billionaire Paramount Skydance owner David Ellison. If Ellison’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the son of Trump-aligned billionaire Larry Ellison, who seems to be a large part of the deal the Trump administration reached to take control of U.S.-based Tiktok.

Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is currently trying to take over Warner Bros. Discovery. It would be a buyout that would require approval from Trump’s administration. Basically put, upsetting Trump right now could halt the deal. Trump doesn’t even need to directly censor media. His administration is so notoriously corrupt that business leaders fall in line, following marching orders from no one. The most efficient form of fascism for an authoritarian regime featuring a leader seemingly in declining health is to sit back and let corporations follow silent orders. Shamefully, it’s working.

Finding the Forbidden Segment: Archivists and Independent Journalists Save the Day

Once again, independent journalists and those willing to obtain and archive media online save the day. Despite the best efforts of whoever may or may not be influencing decisions at CBS News, the “Inside CECOT” 60 Minutes segment is freely available online. A Canadian broadcaster had the story that was blocked in the U.S. available for streaming. People streamed it, some saved it, they shared it with journalists and politicians, and now we can all view the video that many within Trump’s circles likely would prefer you remain ignorant of.

Therefore, it’s your patriotic duty to watch it. Of course, it’s your responsibility as a human being to stay informed and protect others from harm, but we often forget that. Here are a few places to watch it. I’ve already seen a number of sources get taken down, so be ready to search for others. You can find them by searching for “Inside CECOT” “60 Minutes” and “archive.” I’ve already seen it uploaded to a few Instagram stories as well. If you want to see this video, you’ll be able to find it.

  • Archive.org
    • This may be my favorite source. It’s high quality, you can download it, and it’s been up for some time now
  • The Reset
    • Yashar Ali is a Journalist who has written for a number of publications. You can find the segment streaming on his Substack
  • Mueller She Wrote
    • This version is a phone recording of the roughly 14 minute segment. It’s obviously not optimal, but any archiving is vital, and if other sources fail, at least we’ll still have it
  • Mega via Bluesky
    • This is just another mirror of the phone recording you can download yourself. The original post has been deleted, but the internet lasts forever

However you decide to find and watch the video, stay informed, especially about the things your government is trying to cover up. From concentration camps to sex trafficking rings, don’t let the Trump regime hide their darkest secrets. Follow independent journalists, get your news from a variety of sources, and archive videos and news articles that you know may be in danger of being lost due to fascist meddling. These are not easy times, but one easy way to make sure they have the opportunity to improve is to make sure you and everyone you know is as best informed as possible. Truth is resistance.

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